Dieter said, “You can help your husband by telling me what you know.”
“I don’t know anything,” she said in a low voice. “They came after dinner, and they left before dawn. I never saw them.”
“How did they leave? Did your husband provide them with a car?”
She shook her head. “We have no gas.”
“Then how do you deliver the champagne you make?”
“Our customers have to come to us.”
Dieter did not believe her. He felt sure Flick needed transportation. That was why Michel had borrowed a van from Philippe Moulier and brought it here. Yet, when Michel got here, Flick and the Jackdaws had gone. They must have found alternative means of transport and decided to go on ahead. No doubt Flick had left a message explaining the situation and telling Michel to catch up with her.
Dieter said, “Are you asking me to believe they left here on foot?”
“No,” she replied. “I’m telling you that I don’t know. When I woke up, they had gone.”
Dieter still thought she was lying, but to get the truth out of her would take time and patience, and he was running out of both. “Arrest them all,” he said, and his angry frustration injected a petulant note into his voice.
The phone rang in the hall. Dieter stepped out of the dining room and picked it up.
A voice with a German accent said, “Let me speak to Major Franck.”
“This is he.”
“Lieutenant Hesse here, Major.”
“Hans, what happened?”
“I’m at the station. Michel parked the van and bought a ticket to Marles. The train is about to leave.”
It was as Dieter had thought. The Jackdaws had gone ahead and left instructions for Michel to join them. They were still planning to blow up the railway tunnel. He felt frustrated that Flick was continuing to stay one step ahead of him. However, she had not been able to escape him completely. He was still on her tail. He would catch her soon. “Get on the train, quickly,” he said to Hans. “Stay with him. I’ll meet you at Marles.”
“Very good,” said Hans, and he hung up.
Dieter returned to the dining room. “Call the chateau and have them send transportation,” he said to the Gestapo men. “Turn all the prisoners over to Sergeant Becker for interrogation. Tell him to start with Madame.” He pointed to the driver. “You can drive me to Marles.”
CHAPTER 47
IN THE CAF? de La Gare, near the railway station, Flick and Paul had a breakfast of ersatz coffee, black bread, and sausage with little or no meat in it. Ruby, Jelly, and Greta sat at a separate table, not acknowledging them. Flick kept an eye on the street outside.
She knew that Michel was in terrible danger. She had contemplated going to warn him. She could have gone to the Moulier place-but that would have played into the hands of the Gestapo, who must be following Michelin the hope that he would lead them to her. Even to phone the Moulier place would have risked betraying her hideout to a Gestapo eavesdropper at the telephone exchange. In fact, she had decided, the best thing she could do to help Michel was not to contact him directly. If her theory was right, Dieter Franck would let Michel remain at large until Flick was caught.
So she had left a message for Michel with Madame Lapemere. It read:
Michel—I am sure you are under surveillance. The place we were at last night was raided after you left. You have probably been followed this morning. We will leave before you get here and make ourselves inconspicuous in the town center. Park the van near the railway station and leave the key under the driver’s seat. Get a train to Marles. Shake off your shadow and come back.
Be careful—please!
Now burn this.
It seemed good in theory, but she waited all morning in a fever of tension to see whether it would work.
Then, at eleven o’clock, she saw a high van draw up and park near the station entrance. Flick held her breath. On the side, in white lettering, she read Moulier Fils-Viandes.
Michel got out, and she breathed again.
He walked into the station. He was carrying out her plan.
She looked to see who might be following him, but it was impossible. People arrived at the station constantly, on foot, on bicycles, and in cars, and any of them might have been shadowing Michel.
She remained in the cafe, pretending to drink the bitter, unsatisfying coffee substitute, keeping an eye on the van, trying to discover whether it was under surveillance. She studied the people and vehicles coming and going outside the station, but she did not spot anyone who might have been watching the van. After fifteen minutes, she nodded to Paul. They got up, picked up their cases, and walked out.
Flick opened the van door and got into the driver’s seat. Paul got in the other side. Flick’s heart was in her mouth. If this was a Gestapo trap, now would be the moment when they arrested her. She fumbled beneath her seat and found a key. She started the van.
She looked around. No one seemed to have noticed her. Ruby, Jelly, and Greta came out of the cafe. Flick jerked her head to indicate that they should get in the back.
She looked over her shoulder. The van was fitted out with shelves and cupboards, and trays for ice to keep the temperature down. Everything looked as if it had been well scrubbed, but there remained a faint, unpleasant odor of raw meat.
The rear doors opened. The other three women threw their suitcases into the van and clambered in after them. Ruby pulled the doors shut.
Flick put the gearshift into first and drove away.
“We did it!” Jelly said. “Thank gordon.”
Flick smiled thinly. The hard part was still ahead.
She drove out of town on the road to Sainte-Cecile. She watched for police cars and Gestapo Citroens, but she felt fairly safe for the moment. The van’s lettering announced its legitimacy. And it was not unusual for a woman to be driving such a vehicle, when so many Frenchmen were in labor camps in Germany-or had fled to the hills and joined the Maquis to avoid being sent to the camps.
Soon after midday they reached Sainte-Cecile. Flick noted the sudden miraculous quiet that always fell on French streets at the stroke of noon, as the people turned their attention to the first serious meal of the day. She drove to Antoinette’s building. A pair of tall wooden doors, half-open, led to the inner courtyard. Paul leaped out of the van and opened the doors, Flick drove in, and Paul closed the doors behind her. Now the van, with its distinctive legend, could not be seen from the street.
“Come when I whistle,” Flick said, and she jumped out. She went to Antoinette’s door while the others waited in the van. Last time she had knocked on this door, eight days and a lifetime ago, Michel’s aunt Antoinette had hesitated to answer, jumpy on account of the gunfire from the square, but today she came right away. She opened the door, a slim middle-aged woman in a stylish but faded yellow cotton dress. She looked blankly at Flick for a moment: Flick still had on the dark wig. Then recognition dawned. “You!” she said. A look of panic came over her face. “What do you want?”
Flick whistled to the others, then pushed Antoinette back inside. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We’re going to tie you up so the Germans will think we forced you.”
“What is this?” Antoinette said shakily
“I’ll explain in a moment. Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
